Mrs.   Greenhow 

By  W.    G.    Beymer 


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Mrs.   Greenhow 


BY   WILLIAM    GILMORE    BEYMER 


THESE  pages  record  the  story  of 
the  woman  who  cast  a  pebble  into 
the  sea  of  circumstance — a  pebble 
from  whose  widening  ripples  there  rose 
a  mighty  wave,  on  whose  crest  the  Con- 
federate States  of  America  were  borne 
through  four  years  of  civil  war. 

Rose  O'Neal  Greenhow  gave  to  General 
Beauregard  information  which  enabled 
him  to  concentrate  the  widely  scattered 
Confederate  forces  in  time  to  meet 
McDowell  on  the  field  of  Manassas,  and 
there,  with  General  Johnson,  to  win  for 
the  South  the  all  -  important  battle  of 
Bull  Run. 

Mrs.  Greenhow's  cipher  despatch — nine 
words  on  a  scrap  of  paper — set  in  motion 
the  reinforcements  which  arrived  at  the 
height  of  the  battle  and  turned  it  against 
the  North.  But  for  the  part  she  played 
in  the  Confederate  victory  Rose  O'Neal 
Greenhow  paid  a  heavy  price. 

During  the  Buchanan  administration 
Mrs.  Greenhow  was  one  of  the  leaders 
of  Washington  society.  She  was  a  South- 
erner by  birth,  but  a  resident  of  Wash- 
ington from  her  girlhood;  a  widow, 
beautiful,  accomplished,  wealthy,  and 
noted  for  her  wit  and  her  forceful  per- 
sonality. Her  home  was  the  rendezvous 
of  those  prominent  in  official  life  in 
Washington  —  the  "  court  circle,"  had 
America  been  a  monarchy.  She  was  per- 
sonally acquainted  with  all  the  leading 
men  of  the  country,  many  of  whom  had 
partaken  of  her  hospitality.  President 
Buchanan  was  a  close  personal  friend; 
a  friend,  too,  was  William  H.  Seward, 
then  Senator  from  New  York;  her  niece, 
a  granddaughter  of  Dolly  Madison,  was 
the  wife  of  Stephen  A.  Douglas.  It  was 
in  such  company  that  she  watched  with 
burning    interest    the    war    clouds    grow 

*  To  Mrs.  Richard  Price,  Recording 
Secretary  of  Cape  Fear  Chapter  Three, 
United  Daughters  of  the  Confederacy,  at 
Wilmington,  North  Carolina,  acknowledg- 
ment is  made  for  her  courtesy  in  permitting 
the  use  of  data  relating  to  Mrs.  Greenhow. 


and  darken  over  Charleston  Harbor,  then 
burst  into  the  four  years'  storm;  she 
never  saw  it  end. 

Among  her  guests  at  this  time  was 
Colonel  Thomas  Jordan,  who,  before 
leaving  Washington  to  accept  the  ap- 
pointment of  Adjutant-General  of  the 
Confederate  army  at  Manassas,  broached 
to  Mrs.  Greenhow  the  subject  of  a  secret 
military  correspondence.  What  would 
she  do  to  aid  the  Confederacy  ?  he  asked 
her.  Ah,  what  would  she  not  do !  Then 
he  told  her  how  some  one  in  Washington 
was  needed  by  the  South;  of  the  im- 
portance of  the  work  which  might  be 
done,  and  her  own  especial  fitness  for 
the  task.  And  that  night  before  he  left 
the  house  he  gave  her  a  cipher  code,  and 
arranged  that  her  despatches  to  him 
were  to  be  addressed  to  "  Thomas  John 
Rayford." 

And  so  he  crossed  the  river  into  Vir- 
ginia and  left  her,  in  the  Federal  capital, 
armed  with  the  glittering  shield,  "  Justi- 
fied by  military  necessity,"  and  the  two- 
edged  sword,  "  All's  fair  in  love  and  war  " ; 
— left  her,  his  agent,  to  gather  in  her 
own  way  information  from  the  enemy, 
her  former  friends,  where  and  from  whom 
she  would. 

It  was  in  April,  '61,  that  she  took  up 
her  work;  in  November,  Allan  Pinkerton, 
head  of  the  Federal  Secret  Service,  made 
to  the  War  Department  a  report  in  which 
he  said — in  the  vehement  language  of  a 
partisanship  -as  intense  as  Mrs.  Green- 
how's  own : 

It  was  a  fact  too  notorious  to  need  recit- 
ing here,  that  for  months  .  .  .  Mrs.  Green- 
how was  actively  and  to  a  great  extent 
openly  engaged  in  giving  aid  and  comfort, 
sympathy  and  information ;  .  .  .  her  house 
was  the  rendezvous,  for  the  most  violent 
enemies  of  the  government,, *  ■:  .  where  they 
were  furnished  with  every  possible  informa- 
tion to  be  obtained  by  the  untiring  energies 
of  this  very  remarkable  woman ;  .  .  .  that 
since  the  commencement  of  this  rebellion 
this  woman,  from  her  long  residence  at  the 


«1 


<*=, 


504 


HARPER'S    MONTHLY    MAGAZINE 


capital,  her  superior  education,  her  uncom- 
mon social  powers,  her  very  extensive  ac- 
quaintance among,  and  her  active  associa- 
tion with,  the  leading  politicians  of  this 
nation,  has  possessed  an  almost  superhuman 
power,  all  of  which  she  has  most  wickedly 
used  to  destroy  the  government.  .  .  .  She 
has  made  use  of  whoever  and  whatever  she 
could  as  mediums  to  carry  into  effect  her 
unholy  purposes.  .  .  .  She  has  not  used  her 
powers  in  vain  among  the  officers  of  the 
army,  not  a  few  of  whom  she  has  robhed  of 
patriotic  hearts  and  transformed  them  into 
sympathizers  with  the  enemies  of  the 
country.  .  .  .  She  had  her  secret  and  in- 
sidious agents  in  all  parts  of  this  city  and 
scattered  over  a  large  extent  of  country. 
.  .  .  She  had  alphabets,  numbers,  ciphers, 
and  various  other  not  mentioned  ways  of 
holding  intercourse.  .  .  .  Statistical  facts 
were  thus  obtained  and  forwarded  that  could 
have  been  found  nowhere  but  in  the  national 
archives,  thus  leading  me  to  the  conclusion 
that  such  evidence  must  have  been  obtained 
from  employees  and  agents  in  the  various 
departments  of  the  government. 

Thus  she  worked  throughout  the  open- 
ing days  of  the  war.  Washington  lay 
ringed  about  with  camps  of  new-formed 
regiments,  drilling  feverishly.  Already 
the  press  and  public  had  raised  the  cry, 
"  On  to  Richmond."  When  would  they 
start  ?  Where  would  they  first  strike  ? 
It  was  on  those  two  points  that  the  Con- 
federate plan  of  campaign  hinged.  It 
was  Mrs.  Greenhow  who  gave  the  in- 
formation. To  General  Beauregard  at 
Manassas,  where  he  anxiously  awaited 
tidings  of  the  Federal  advance,  there 
came  about  the  10th  of  July  the  first 
message  from  Mrs.  Greenhow.  The  mes- 
sage told  of  the  intended  advance  of  the 
enemy  across  the  Potomac  and  on  to 
Manassas  via  Fairfax  Court-house  and 
Centreville.  It  was  brought  into  the 
Confederate  lines  by  a  young  lady  of 
Washington,  Miss  Duval,  who,  disguised 
as  a  market-girl,  carried  the  message  to 
a  house  near  Fairfax  Court-house,  oc- 
cupied by  the  wife  and  daughters  (South- 
ern born)  of  an  officer  in  the  Federal 
army.  General  Beauregard  at  once  com- 
menced his  preparations  for  receiving  the 
attack,  and  sent  one  of  his  aides  to 
President  Davis  to  communicate  the  in- 
formation and  to  urge  the  immediate 
concentration  of  the  scattered  Con- 
federate forces. 

But  still  the  Federal  start  was  delayed, 


and  the  precise  date  was  as  indefinite 
as  ever.  It  was  during  this  period  of 
uncertainty  that  (1.  Donellan,  who.  be- 
fore joining  the  Confederates,  had  been 
a  clerk  in  the  Department  of  the  Interior, 
volunteered  to  return  to  Washington  for 
information.  lie  was  armed  with  the 
two  words  "  Trust  Bearer "  in  Colonel 
Jordan's  cipher,  and  was  sent  across  the 
Potomac  with  instructions  to  report  to 
Mrs.  Greenhow.  He  arrived  at  the  very 
moment  that  she  most  needed  a  mes- 
senger. Hastily  writing  in  cipher  her 
all-important  despatch,  "  Order  issued  for 
.McDowell  to  move,  on  Manassas  to-night," 
she  gave  it  to  Donellan,  who  was  taken 
by  her  agents  in  a  buggy,  with  relays  of 
horses,  down  the  eastern  shore  of  the 
Potomac  to  a  ferry  near  Dumfries, 
where  he  was  ferried  across.  Cavalry 
couriers  delivered  the  despatch  into 
General  Beauregard's  hands  that  night, 
July  16th. 

And  the  source  of  Mrs.  Greenhow's 
information  ?  She  has  made  the  state- 
ment that  she  "received  a  copy  of  the 
order  to  McDowell."  Allan  Pinkerton 
was  not  wrong  when  he  said  that  sho 
"had  not  used  her  powers  in  vain  among 
the  officers  of  the  army." 

At  midday  of  the  17th  there  came 
Colonel  Jordan's  reply: 

Yours  was  received  at  eight  o'clock  at 
night.  Let  them  come;  we  are  ready  for 
them.  We  rely  upon  you  for  precise  infor- 
mation. Be  particular  as  to  description  and 
destination  of  forces,  quantity  of  artillery, 
etc. 

She.  was  ready  with  fresh  information, 
and  the  messenger  was  sent  back  with 
the  news  that  the  Federals  intended  to 
cut  the  Manassas  Gap  Railroad  to  pre- 
vent Johnson,  at  Winchester,  from  re- 
inforcing Beauregard.  After  that  there 
was  nothing  to  be  done  but  await  the 
result  of  the  inevitable  battle.  She  had 
done  her  best.  What  that  best  was  worth 
she  learned  when  she  received  from  Colo- 
nel Jordan  the  treasured  message: 

Our  President  and  our  Genera]  direct  me 
to  thank  you.  We  rely  upon  you  for  further 
information.  The  Confederacy  owes  you  a 
debt. 

When  the  details  of  the  battle  became 
known,  and  she  learned  bow  the  last  of 
Johnson's    S.fiOO   men    (marched    to    Gen- 


MRS.    GREENHOW 


565 


, — 


eral  Beauregard's  aid  because  of  her 
despatches)  had  arrived  at  three  o'clock 
on  the  day  of  the  battle  and  had  turned 
the  wavering  Eedcral  army  into  a  mob  of 
panic-stricken  fugitives,  she  felt  that  the 
"  Confederacy  owed  her  a  debt,"  indeed. 

In  the  days  immediately  following 
Bull  Run  it  seemed  to  the  Confederate 
sympathizers  in 
the  city  that  their 
victorious  army 
had  only  to  jnareh 
into  Washington 
to  take  it.  "Ev- 
erything about  the 
national  Capitol 
betokened  the  pan- 
ic of  the  Admin- 
istration," Mrs. 
Greenhow  wrote. 
"P  reparations 
were  made  for 
the  expected  at- 
tack, and  signals 
were  arranged  to 
give  the  alarm. 
...  I  went  round 
with  the  principal 
officer  in  charge 
of  this  duty,  and ; 
took  advantage  of 
the  situation.  .  .  . 
Our  gallant 
Beauregard  would 
have  found  him- 
self right  ably 
seconded     by     the 

rebels  in  "Washington  had  he  deemed  it 
expedient  to  advance  on  the  city.  A 
part  of  the  plan  was  to  have  cut  the 
telegraph  wires  connecting  with  the  va- 
rious military  positions  with  the  War 
Department,  to  make  prisoners  of  Mc- 
Clellan  and  several  others,  thereby 
creating  still  greater  confusion  in  the 
first  moments  of  panic.  Measures  had 
also  been  taken  to  spike  the  guns  in 
Fort  Corcoran,  Fort  Ellsworth,  and  other 
important  points,  accurate  drawings  of 
which  had  been  furnished  to  our  com- 
manding officer  by  me."  Doubtless  it 
was  these  same  drawings  concerning 
which  the  New  York  Herald  commented 
editorially  a  month  later: 

.  .  .  We  have  in  this  little  matter  [Mrs. 
Greenhow's  arrest]  a  clue  to  the  mystery 
of    those    important    government    maps    and 


^ 


'ti"p"f^ 


Mrs-  Greenhow    and    her    Daughter 
From   a    War-time   Photograph 


plans  which  the  rebels  lately  left  behind  them 
in  their  hasty  flight  from  Fairfax  Court- 
house, .  .  .  and  we  are  at  liberty  to  guess 
how  Beauregard  was  so  minutely  informed 
of  this  advance,  and  of  our  plan  of  attack  on 
his  lines,  as  to  be  ready  to  meet  it  at  every 
salient  point  with  overwhelming  numbers. 

Poor  Mrs.  Greenhow — from  the  very 
first  doomed  to 
disaster.  Her 

maps  and  plans 
( if  these,  indeed, 
were  hers)  were 
allowed  to  fall 
into  the  enemy's 
hands;  despatches 
were  sent  to  her 
by  an  ill  -  chosen 
messenger,  who, 
too  late,  was  dis- 
covered to  be  a 
sp  -  for  the  Fed- 
eral War  Depart- 
ment ;  her  very 
cipher  code,  given 
her  by  Colonel 
Jordan,  proved  to 
be  an  amateurish 
affair  that  was 
readily  deciphered 
by  the  Federal 
War  Office.  She 
never  had  a 
chance  to  escape 
detection.  Con- 
cerning the  ci- 
pher, Colonel  Jor- 
dan wrote  to  Confederate  Secretary  of 
War  Judah  P.  Benjamin,  October,  '61 
(the  letter  was  found  in  the  archives  of 
Richmond  four  years  later)  :  "  This  ci- 
pher I  arranged  last  April.  Being  my 
first  attempt  and  hastily  devised  it  may 
be  deciphered  by  any  expert,  as  I  found 
after  use  of  it  for  a  time.  .  .  .  That  does 
not  matter  as  of  course  I  used  it  with 
but  the  lady,  and  with  her  it  has  served 
our  purpose.  .  .  ."  It  had,  indeed,  served 
their  purpose,  but  in  serving  it  had 
brought  imprisonment  and  ruin  to  the 
woman. 

When  the  War  Department  began  to 
shake  itself  free  from  the  staggering 
burden  placed  upon  it  by  the  rout  at 
Bull  Run,  almost  its  first  step  was  to 
seek  out  the  source  of  the  steady  and 
swift-flowing    stream    of    information    to 


566 


HARPER'S    MONTHLY    MAGAZINE 


Richmond.  Suspicion  at  once  fell  upon 
Mrs.  Greenhow.  Many  expressed  their 
secession  sentiments  as  openly  as  did  she, 
but  there  was  none  other  who  possessed 
her  opportunities  for  obtaining  Federal 
secrets.  Federal  officers  and  officials  con- 
tinued their  pleasant  social  relations  with 
her,  and  she  was  believed  by  the  War 
Office  to  be  influencing  some  of  these. 
Thomas  A.  Scott,  Assistant  Secretary  of 
War,  sent  for  Allan  Pinkerton  and  in- 
structed him  to  place  '  Mrs.  Greenhow 
under  surveillance;  her  house  was  to  be 
constantly  watched,  as  well  as  all  visitors 
from  the  moment  they  were  seen  to  enter 
or  to  leave  it,  and,  should  any  of  these 
visitors  later  attempt  to  go  South,  they 
were  immediately  to  be  arrested.  The 
watch  on  the  house  continued  for  some 
days ;  many  prominent  gentlemen  called 
— men  whose  loyalty  was  above  question. 
Then  on  the  night  of  August  22d,  while 
Pinkerton  and  several  of  his  men  watched 
during  a  hard  storm,  an  officer  of  the 
Federal  army  entered  the  house.  Pinker- 
ton removed  his  shoes  and  stood  on  the 
shoulders  of  one  of  his  men  that  he 
might  watch  and  listen  at  a  crack  in  the 
shutters.  When  the  officer  left  the  house 
he  was  followed  by  Pinkerton  (still  in 
his  stocking  feet)  and  one  of  his  de- 
tectives. Turning  suddenly,  the  officer 
discovered  that  he  was  being  followed ; 
he  broke  into  a  run,  and  the  three  of 
them  raced  through  the  deserted,  rain- 
swept streets  straight  to  the  door  of  a 
station  of  the  Provost  -  Marshal.  The 
pursued  had  maintained  his  lead  and 
reached  the  station  first;  he  was  its 
commanding  officer,  and  instantly  turned 
out  the  guard.  Allan  Pinkerton  and  his 
agent  suddenly  found  that  the  quarry 
had  bagged  the  hunters. 

The  angry  officer  refused  to  send  word 
for  them  to  Secretary  Scott,  to  General 
McClellan,  to  the  Provost-Marshal — to 
any  one!  He  clapped  them  into  the 
guard-house — "  a  most  filthy  and  uncom- 
fortable place  " — and  left  them  there, 
wet  and  bedraggled,  among  the  crowd  of 
drunken  soldiers  and  common  prisoners 
of  the  streets.  In  the  morning,  when  the 
guard  was  relieved,  one  of  them,  whom 
Pinkerton  had  bribed,  carried  a  message 
to  Secretary  Scotf,  by  whom  they  were 
at  once  set  free.  In  his  report  Allan 
Pinkerton  says: 


.  .  .  The  officer  then  [immediately  after 
Pinkerton  was  put  under  arrest]  went  up- 
stairs while  I  halted  and  looked  at  my 
watch.  Said  officer  returned  in  twenty  min- 
utes with  a  revolver  in  his  hand,  saying  that 
he  went  up-stairs  on  purpose  to  get  the  re- 
volver. The  inquiry  arises,  was  it  for  that 
purpose  he  stayed  thus,  or  for  the  more 
probable  one  of  hiding  or  destroying  the 
evidence. of  his  guilt  obtained  of  Mrs.  Green- 
how or  furnished  to  her?  .  .  . 

This  report  goes  no  further  into  the 
charge,  but  that  very  day,  August  23d, 
within  a  few  hours  of  his  release,  Allan 
Pinkerton  placed  Mrs.  Greenhow  under 
arrest  as  a  spy. 

Of  the  events  of  that  fateful  Friday 
Mrs.  Greenhow  has  left  a  graphic  record, 
complete  save  that  it  does  not  tell  why 
such  events  need  ever  have  been,  for  she 
had  been  warned  of  her  proposed  arrest — 
warned  in  ample  time  at  least  to  have 
attempted  an  escape.  The  message  which 
told  of  the  impending  blow  had  been  sent 
1o  her,  Mrs.  Greenhow  tells,  by  a  lady 
in  Georgetown,  to  whom  one  of  General 
McClellan's  aides  had  given  the  informa- 
tion. The  note  said  also  that  the  Hon. 
William  Presfon,  Minister  to  Spain  until 
the  outbreak  of  the  war,  was  likewise 
to  be  arrested.  To  him  Mrs.  Greenhow 
passed  on  the  warning,  and  he  safely 
reached  the  Confederate  army.  But 
Mrs.  Greenhow  —  why  did  she  stay? 
Did  escape  seem  so  improbable  that  she 
dared  not  run  the  risk  of  indubitably 
convicting  herself  by  an  attempted  flight? 
Did  she  underestimate  the  gravity  of  her 
situation  and  depend  upon  "  influence " 
to  save  her  ?  Or  was  it.  after  all,  some 
Casabianca-like  folly  of  remaining  at  her 
"post"  until  the  end?  Whatever  the 
reason,  she  stayed. 

Day  after  day  she  waited  for  the  warn- 
ing's fulfilment.  Though  waiting,  she 
worked  on.  "  'Twas  very  exciting,"'  she 
told  a  friend  long  afterward.  "  T  would 
be  walking  down  the  Avenue  with  one 
of  the  officials,  military  or  state,  and  as 
we  strolled  along  there  would  pass — 
perhaps  a  washerwoman  carrying  home 
her  basket  of  clean  clothes,  or.  maybe,  a 
gaily  attired  youth  from  lower  Seventh 
Avenue;  but  something  in  the  way  the 
woman  held  her  basket,  or  in  the  way 
the  youth  twirled  his  cane,  told  me  that 
news  had  been  received,  or  that  news  was 


MES.    GREENHOW 


567 


wanted — that  I  must  open  up  communi- 
cations in  some  way.  Or  as  we  sat  in 
some  city  park  a  sedate  old  gentleman 
would  pass  by:  to  my  unsuspecting  escort 
the  passer-by  was  but  commonplace,  but 
to  me  his  manner  of  polishing-  his  glasses, 
or  the  flourish  of  the  handkerchief  with 
which  he  rubbed  his  nose,  was  a  message.'' 

Days  full  of 
anxious  forebod- 
ings sped  by  until 
the  morning  of 
the  23d  of  August 
dawned,  .oppres- 
sively sultry  after 
the  night  of  rain 
which  had  so  be- 
draggled A  1 1  a  n 
Pinkerton  and  his 
detective.  At 
about  eleven 
o'clock  that  morn- 
ing Mrs.  Green- 
how  was  return- 
ing home  from  a 
promenade  with 
a  distinguished 
member  of  the 
diplomatic  corps, 
but  for  whose 
escort  she  believed 
she  would  have 
been  arrested 
sooner,     for     she 

knew  she  was  being  followed.  Excusing 
herself  to  her  escort,  she  stopped  to  in- 
quire for  the  sick  child  of  a  neighbor, 
and  there  they  warned  her  that  her  house 
was  being  watched.  So,  then,  the  time 
had  come!  As  she  paused  at  her  neigh- 
bor's door,  perhaps  for  the  moment  a 
trifle  irresolute,  one  of  her  "  humble 
agents  "  chanced  to  be  coming  that  way ; 
farther  down  the  street  two  men  were 
watching  her;  she  knew  their  mission. 

To  her  passing  agent  she  called,  softly: 
"  I  think  that  I  am  about  to  be  arrested. 
Watch  from  Corcoran's  corner.  I  shall 
raise  my  handkerchief  to  my  face  if  they 
arrest  me.  Give  information  of  it." 
Then  she  slowly  crossed  the  street  to 
her  house.  She  had  several  important 
papers  with  her  that  morning;  one,  a 
tiny  note,  she  put  into  her  mouth  and 
destroyed;  the  other,  a  letter  in  cipher, 
she  was  unable  to  get  from  her  pocket 
without  being  observed;   for  the   oppor- 


Little  Rose  Greenhow 
From    a   War-time    Photograph 


tunity  to  destroy  it  she  must  trust  to 
chance.  As  she  mounted  the  short  flight 
of  steps  to  her  door,  the  two  men — Allan 
Pinkerton  and  his  operative,  who  had 
followed  her  rapidly — reached  the  foot 
of  the  steps.  She  turned  and  faced 
them,  waiting  for  them  to  speak. 
''Is  this  Mrs.  Greenhow?" 

"Yes,"  she  re- 
plied, coldly.  As 
they  still  hesi- 
tated, she  asked, 
"  Who  are  you, 
and  what  do  you 
want  ?" 

"  I  have  come 
to  arrest  you," 
Pinkerton  an- 
swered, shortly. 

"  By  what  au- 
thority ?  Let  me 
see  your  war- 
rant," she  de- 
manded, bravely 
enough  except  for 
what  seemed  a 
nervous  move- 
ment of  the  flut- 
tering handker- 
chief. To  the 
detectives,  if  they 
noticed  it,  it  was 
but  the  tremulous 
gesture  of  a  wom- 
an's fright.  To  the  agent  lingering  at 
Corcoran's  corner  it  was  the  signal. 

"  I  have  no  power  to  resist  you,"  she 
said ;  "  but,  had  I  been  inside  of  my  house 
I  would  have  killed  one  of  you  before 
I  had  submitted  to  this  illegal  process." 
They  followed  her  into  her  house  and 
closed  the  door. 

"  It  seemed  but  a  moment,"  she  tells, 
"  before  the  house  became  filled  with 
men,  and  an  indiscriminate  search  com- 
menced. Men  rushed  with  frantic  haste 
into  my  chamber,  into  every  sanctuary. 
Beds,  drawers,  wardrobes,  soiled  linen — ■ 
search  was  made  everywhere !  Even 
scraps  of  paper  —  childrens'  unlettered 
scribblings  —  were  seized  and  tortured 
into  dangerous  correspondence  with  the 
enemy." 

It  was  a  very  hot  day.  She  asked  to 
be  allowed  to  change  her  dress,  and  per- 
mission was  grudgingly  given  her,  but 
almost  immediately  a  detective  followed 


The    Old    Capitol    Prison 


to  her  bedroom,  calling,  "Madam! 
Madam!"  and  flung  open  the  door.  She 
barely  had  had  time  to  destroy  the  cipher 
note  that  was  in  her  pocket.  Very  short- 
ly afterward  a  woman  detective  arrived, 
and  "  I  was  allowed  the  poor  privilege 
of  unfastening  my  own  garments,  which 
one  by  one  were  received  by  this  pseudo- 
woman  and  carefully  examined." 

Though  wild  confusion  existed  within 
the  house,  no  sign  of  it  was  allowed  to 
show  itself  from  without,  for  the  house 
was  now  a  trap,  baited  and  set ;  behind 
the  doors  detectives  waited  to  seize  all 
who,  ignorant  of  the  fate  of  its  owner, 
might  call.  Anxious  to  save  her  friends, 
and  fearful,  too,  lest  she  be  compromised 
further  by  papers  which  might  be  found 
on  them  when  searched,  Mrs.  Green- 
how  sought  means  to  warn  them  away. 
The  frightened  servants  were  all  under 
guard,  bul  there  was  one  member  of 
I  he  household  whose  freedom  was  not  yet 
taken  from  hoi- — Mrs.  Greenhow's  daugh- 
ter, Rose,  a  child  of  eight.  It  is  her 
letters  which  have  supplied  many  of  the 
details  for  this  story.  Of  that  day,  so 
full  of  terror  and  bewilderment,  the  mem- 


ory which  stands  out  most  clear  to  her 
is  that  of  climbing  a  tree  in  the  garden 
and  from  there  calling  to  all  the  passers- 
by  :  "  Mother  has  been  arrested !  Mother 
has  been  arrested!"  until  the  detectives 
in  the  house  heard  her.  and  angrily 
dragged  her.  weeping,  from  the  tree. 

But  in  spite  of  the  efforts  of  the 
"  humble  agent  "  who  had  waited  at  Cor- 
coran's  corner  for  the  handkerchief 
signal,  in  spite  of  the  sacrifice  of  little 
Rose's  freedom,  the  trap  that  day  was 
sprung  many  times.  Miss  Mackall  and 
her  sister,  close  friends  of  Mrs.  Green- 
hew,  were  seized  as  they  crossed  the 
threshold,  and  searched  and  detained. 
Their  mother,  coming  to  find  her  daugh- 
ters, became  with  them  a  prisoner.  A 
negro  girl — a  former  servant — and  her 
brother,  who  were  merely  passing  the 
house,  were  induced  to  enter  it.  and  for 
hours  subjected  to  an  inquisition. 

Night  came,  and  the  men  left  in 
charge  grew  boisterous;  an  argument 
started  among  them.  Mrs.  Greenhow 
tells — with  keen  enjoyment — of  having 
egged  en  the  disputants,  pitting  nation- 
ality   against    nationality — English,    Ger- 


MRS.    GBEENHOW 


569 


man,  Irish,  Yankee — so  that  in  the  still 
night  their  loud,  angry  voices  might 
serve  as  a  danger  signal  to  her  friends. 
But  the  dispute  died  out  at  last — too  soon 
to  save  two  gentlemen  who  called  late 
that  evening,  a  call  which  cost  them 
months  of  imprisonment  on  the  never- 
proved  charge  of  heing  engaged  in 
"  contraband  and  treasonable  correspond- 
ence with  the  Confederates." 

Soon  after  midnight  there  came  the 
brief  relaxing  of  vigilance  for  which 
Mrs.  Greenhow  had  watched  expectantly 
all  day.  She  had  taken  the  resolution 
to  fire  the  house  if  she  did  not  succeed 
in  obtaining  certain  papers  in  the  course 
of  the  night,  for  she  had  no  hope  that 
they  would  escape  a  second  day's  search. 
But  now  the  time  for  making  the  at- 
tempt had  come,  and  she  stole  noise- 
lessly into  the  dark  library.  From  the 
topmost  shelf  she  took  down  a  book,  be- 
tween whose  leaves  lay  the  coveted 
despatch;  concealing  it  in  the  folds  of 
her  dress,  she  swiftly  regained  her  room. 
A  few  moments  later  the  guard  returned 
to  his  post  at  her  open  door. 

She  had  been  permitted  the  companion- 
ship of  Miss  Mackall,  and  now  as  the 
two  women  reclined  on  the  bed  they 
planned  how  they  might  get  the  despatch 
out  of  the  house.  When  Mrs.  Greenhow 
had  been  searched  that  afternoon  her 
shoes  and  stockings  had  not  been  ex- 
amined, and  so,  trusting  to  the  slim 
chance  that  Miss  MackalFs  would  like- 
wise escape  examination,  it  was  deter- 
mined that  the  despatch  should  be  hid- 
den in  her  stocking;  and  this — since  the 
room  was  in  darkness  save  for  the  faint 
light  from  the  open  door,  and  the  bed 
stood  in  deep  shadow — was  accomplished 
in  the  very  presence  of  the  guard.  They 
planned  that  should  Miss  Mackall,  when 
about  to  be  released,  have  reason  to  be- 
lieve she  was  to  be  searched  carefully, 
she  must  then  be  seized  with  compunc- 
tion at  leaving  her  friend,  and  return. 

Between  three  and  four  o'clock  Satur- 
day morning  those  friends  who  had  been 
detained  were  permitted  to  depart  (ex- 
cept the  two  gentlemen,  who,  some  hours 
before,  had  been  taken  to  the  Frovost- 
Marshal),  and  with  Miss  Mackall  went 
in  safety  the  despatch  for  whose  destruc- 
tion Mrs.  Greenhow  would  have  burned 
her  house. 

Vol.  CXXIV.— No.  742.—  71 


But  though  she  had  destroyed  or  saved 
much  dangerous  correspondence,  there 
fell  into  the  hands  of  the  Federal  secret 
service  much  more  of  her  correspondence, 
by  which  were  dragged  into  the  net  many 
of  her  friends  and  agents.  A  letter  in 
cipher  addressed  to  Thomas  John  Bay- 
ford  in  part  read: 

Your  three  last  despatches  I  never  got. 
Those  by  Applegate  were  betrayed  by  him 
to  the  War  Department ;  also  the  one  sent 
by  our  other  channel  was  destroyed  by 
Van  Camp. 

Dr.  Aaron  Van  Camp,  charged  with 
being  a  spy,  was  arrested,  and  cast  into 
the  Old  Capitol  Frison.  In  a  stove  in 
the  Greenhow  house  were  found,  and 
pieced  together,  the  fragments  of  a  note 
from  Donellan,  the  messenger  who  had 
carried  her  despatch  to  Beauregard  be- 
fore Bull  Eun.  The  note  introduced 
"  Colonel  Thompson,  the  bearer,  .  .  . 
[who]  will  be  happy  to  take  from  your 
hands  any  communications  and  obey  your 
injunctions  as  to  disposition  of  same  with 
despatch."  The  arrest  of  Colonel  Thomp- 
son, as  of  Mrs.  Greenhow,  involved  oth- 
ers; it  was  all  like  a  house  of  cards — 
by  the  arrest  of  Mrs.  Greenhow  the  whole 
flimsy  structure  had  been  brought  crash- 
ing clown. 

Of  the  days  which  followed  the  be- 
ginning of  Mrs.  Greenhow's  imprison- 
ment in  her  own  house,  few  were  devoid 
of  excitement  of  some  sort.  After  a 
few  days  Miss  Mackall  had  obtained 
permission  to  return  and  share  her 
friend's  captivity.  It  was  she  who  fortu- 
nately found  and  destroyed  a  sheet  of 
blotting-paper  which  bore  the  perfect  im- 
print of  the  Bull  Eun  despatch!  The 
detectives  remained  in  charge  for  seven 
days;  they  examined  every  book  in  the 
library  leaf  by  leaf  (too  late!);  boxes 
containing  books,  china,  and  glass  that 
had  been  packed  away  for  months  were 
likewise  minutely  examined.  Fortions  • 
of  the  furniture  were  taken  apart;  pic- 
tures removed  from  their  frames;  beds 
overturned  many  times. 

"  Seemingly  I  was  treated  with  defer- 
ence," Mrs.  Greenhow  tells.  "  Once  only 
were  violent  hands  put  upon  my  person 
— the  detective,  Captain  Denis,  having 
rudely  seized  me  to  prevent  me  giving 
warning  to  a  lady  and  gentleman  on  the 


570 


HARPER'S    MONTHLY   MAGAZINE 


first  evening  of  my  arrest  (which  I  suc- 
ceeded in  doing)."  She  was  permitted 
to  be  alone  scarcely  a  moment.  "  If  I 
wished  to  lie  down,  he  was  seated  a  few 
paces  from  my  bed.  If  I  desired  to 
change  my  dress,  it  was  obliged  to  be 
done  with  open  doors.  .  .  .  They  still 
presumed  to  seat  themselves  at  table  with 
me,  with  unwashed  hands  and  shirt- 
sleeves." Only  a  few  months  before  this 
the  President  of  the  United  States  had 
dined  frequently  at  that  very  table. 

Her  jailers  sought  to  be  bribed  to 
carry  messages  for  her — in  order  to  be- 
tray her;  their  hands  were  ever  out- 
stretched. One  set  himself  the  pleasant 
task  of  making  love  to  her  maid,  Lizzie 
Fitzgerald,  a  quick-witted  Irish  girl,  who 
entered  keenly  into  the  sport  of  senti- 
mental walks  and  treats  at  Uncle  Sam's 
expense — and,  of  course,  revealed  noth- 
ing. 

On  Friday  morning,  the  30th  of  Au- 
gust, Mrs.  Greenhow  was  informed  that 
other  prisoners  were  to  be  brought  in, 
and  that  her  house  was  to  be  converted 
into  a  prison.  A  lieutenant  and  twenty- 
one  men  of  the  Sturgis  Rifles  (General 
McClellan's  body-guard)  were  now  placed 
in  charge  instead  of  the  detective  police. 
The  house  began  to  fill  with  other 
prisoners — all  women.  The  once  quiet 
and  unpretentious  residence  at  398  Six- 
teenth Street  became  known  as  "  Fort 
Greenhow,"  and  an  object  of  intense  in- 
terest to  the  crowds  that  came  to  stare 
at  it — which  provoked  from  the  New 
York  Times  the  caustic  comment: 

Had  Madam  Greenhow  been  sent  South 
immediately  after  her  arrest,  as  we  recom- 
mended, we  should  have  heard  no  more  of  the 
heroic  deeds  of  Secesh  women,  which  she  has 
made  the  fashion. 

Had  the  gaping  crowds  known  what  the 
harassed  sentries  knew,  they  would  have 
stared  with  better  cause.  They  sought 
to  catch  a  glimpse  of  Mrs.  Greenhow 
because  of  what  she  had  done ;  the  guards' 
chief  concern  was  with  the  Mrs.  Greenhow 
of  the  present  moment.  For  during  the 
entire  time  that  she  was  a  prisoner  in 
her  own  house  Mrs.  Greenhow  was  in 
frequent  communication  with  the  South. 
How  she  accomplished  the  seemingly  im- 
possible will  never  be  fully  known. 

She    tells    of    information    being    con- 


veyed to  her  by  her  "  little  bird " ;  of 
preparing  "  those  peculiar,  square  de- 
spatches to  be  forwarded  to  our  great 
and  good  President  at  Richmond " ;  of 
"  tapestry-work  in  a  vocabulary  of  colors, 
which,  though  not  a  very  prolific  language, 
served  my  purpose " ;  and  she  gives,  as 
an  example  of  many  such,  "  a  seemingly 
innocent  letter,"  which  seems  innocent, 
indeed,  and  must  forever  remain  so,  since 
she  does  not  supply  the  key  whereby  its 
hidden  meaning  may  be  understood. 

Then  there  is  the  story  of  the  ball  of 
pink  knitting-yarn,  a  story  which,  un- 
like the  yarn  ball,  was  never  unwound 
to  lay  its  innermost  secrets  bare.  Now 
and  then  the  prisoners  passed  one  another 
when  being  marched  for  their  period  of 
exercise  in  the  garden  or  back  into 
the  house  again;  and  it  was  thus  that 
Mrs.  Greenhow  one  day  met  Mrs.  Philips 
in  the  hall.  Behind  each  stalked  an 
armed  guard;  the  ladies  might  not  pause 
even  long  enough  to  bid  each  other  good 
day.  But  as  she  passed  on  into  the 
house,  Mrs.  Philips  called,  "  I  found  your 
ball  of  pink  yarn  in  the  shrub-bush  under 
your  window,  and  tossed  it  into  your 
room."  Pink  yarn !  Women  -  talk ! — 
not  worth  a  soldier's  heed,  and  the 
sentries  gave  -it  none.  Out  in  the  gar- 
den Mrs.  Greenhow  restlessly  paced  up 
and  down;  for  the  first  time  the  brief 
half-hour  seemed  too  long;  for  the  first 
time,  too,  she  was  glad  to  be  marched 
back  to  her  room  again.  Yes!  there  on 
the  floor  in  a  band  of  sunlight  lay  the 
pink  ball — safe.  As  she  dropped  it  care- 
lessly into  her  work-basket  the  guard 
watched  her  narrowly,  then  again  lan- 
guidly seated  himself  at  her  door.  That 
is  all  of  the  story — except  that  the  ball 
of  pink  yarn  was  wound  around  a  little 
roll  of  paper,  a  cipher  message  from  the 
South. 

By  such  means  she  was  able  to  outwit 
her  many  guards — though  not  as  in- 
variably as  at  the  time  she  believed  that 
she  had  done.  Allan  Pinkerton  reports 
to  the  War  Department,  with  a  mixture 
of  irritation  and  complacency: 

She  has  not  ceased  to  lay  plans,  to  at- 
tempt the  bribery  of  officers  having  her  in 
charge,  to  make  use  of  signs  from  the  win- 
dows of  her  house  to  her  friends  on  the 
streets,  to  communicate  with  such  friends 
and  through  them  as  she  supposed  send  in- 


^y  ~  a " ""] 

;    1     1 

'nil 

IIw^mIw* 

^^     L**    yP 

|k 

&                           M: '■■}  'fff^^^T^Sff 

SESo  ■"**  - 

IMP 

Drawn  by  Stanley  M.  Arthurs 

THE    BARRED    WINDOW    LOOKED    OUT    UPON    THE    PRISON    YARD 


MRS.    GREENHOW 


571 


formation  to  the  rebels  in  ciphers  requiring 
much  time  to  decipher — all  of  which  she  sup- 
posed she  was  doing  through  an  officer  who 
had  her  in  charge  and  whom  she  supposed 
she  had  bribed  to  that  purpose,  but  who, 
faithful  to  his  trust,  laid  her  communica- 
tions before  yourself. 

But  Mrs.  Greenhow  evidently  made  use 
of  other  channels  as  well,  for  the  copy 
of  her  first  letter  to  Secretary  Seward 
safely  reached  the  hands  of  those  friends 
to  whom  it  was  addressed,  and  by  them 
it  was  published  in  the  newspapers, 
North  and  South,  thereby  showing  to  all 
the  world  that  a  tendril  of  the  grape- 
vine telegraph  still  reached  out  from 
"  Fort  Greenhow."  It  was  not  this  alone 
which  made  officialdom  and  the  public 
gasp — it  was  the  letter  itself.  In  tone 
it  was  calm,  almost  dispassionate — a  mas- 
terly letter.  The  blunt  Anglo-Saxon 
words  which  set  forth  in  detail  the  in- 
dignities which  she  suffered  from,  the 
unceasing  watch  kept  over  her  came  like 
so  many  blows.  She  pointed  out  that 
her  arrest  had  been  without  warrant; 
that  her  house  and  all  its  contents  had 
been  seized,  and  that  she  herself  had 
been  held  a  prisoner  more  than  three 
months  without  a  trial,  and  that  she  was 
yet  ignorant  of  the  charge  against  her. 
The  letter  was  strong,  simple,  dignified, 
but  it  brought  no  reply. 

The  heat  of  midsummer  had  passed 
and  autumn  had  come,  and  with  it 
many  changes.  Miss  Mackall  was  one 
day  abruptly  taken  away  and  sent  to 
her  own  home;  the  two  friends  were 
never  to  meet  again.  Other  prisoners 
were  freed  or  transferred  elsewhere,  and 
yet  others  came — among  them  a  Miss 
Poole,  who  almost  immediately  sought 
to  curry  favor  by  reporting  that  little 
Eose,  who  for  some  time  had  been  al- 
lowed to  play,  under  guard,  on  the  pave- 
ment, had  received  a  communication  for 
her  mother;  and  the  child  was  again 
confined  within  the  four  walls.  "  This  was 
perhaps  my  hardest  trial — to  see  my  lit- 
tle one  pining  and  fading  under  my  eyes 
for  want  of  food  and  air.  The  health 
and  spirits  of  my  faithful  maid  also 
began  to  fail."  The  attempt  of  several 
of  the  guard  to  communicate  informa- 
tion was  likewise  reported  by  Miss  Poole, 
and  the  thumb-screws  of  discipline  were 
tightened   by  many   turns.      The  kindly 


officer  of  the  guard,  Lieutenant  Sheldon, 
was  ordered  to  hold  no  personal  com- 
munication with  Mrs.  Greenhow;  the 
guard  was  set  as  spies  upon  one  another 
and  upon  him;  they,  too,  were  forbidden 
under  severe  penalty  to  speak  to  her  or  to 
answer  her  questions.  An  order  was 
issued  prohibiting  her  from  purchasing 
newspapers,  or  being  informed  of  their 
contents.  At  times  it  seemed  as  though 
her  house,  and  she  in  it,  had  been  swal- 
lowed, and  now  lay  within  the  four  walls 
of  a  Chillon  or  a  Chateau  d'lf;  it  was 
added  bitterness  to  her  to  look  about  the 
familiar  room  and  remember  that  once  it 
had  been  home ! 

Miss  Mackall  had  been  making  cease- 
less efforts  to  be  allowed  to  visit  her 
friend,  but  permission  was  steadily  de- 
nied. Then  the  news  sifted  into  "  Fort 
Greenhow,"  and  reached  its  one-time 
mistress,  that  Miss  Mackall  was  ill, 
desperately  ill;  for  the  first  time  Mrs. 
Greenhow  ceased  to  demand — she  pleaded 
to  see  her  friend ;  and  failed.  Then  came 
the  news  that  Miss  Mackall  was  dead. 

Among  those  friends  of  the  old  days 
who  now  and  then  were  allowed  to  call 
was  Edwin  M.  Stanton,  not  yet  Secre- 
tary of  War.  Mrs.  Greenhow  endeavored 
to  engage  him  as  counsel  to  obtain  for 
her  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  but  he 
declined. 

Friends — with  dubious  tact — smuggled 
to  her  newspaper  clippings  in  which  the 
statement  was  made  that  "  Mrs.  Green- 
how had  lost  her  mind,"  and  that  "  it  is 
rumored  that  the  government  is  about 
to  remove  her  to  a  private  lunatic 
asylum."  "My  blood  freezes  even  now," 
she  wrote,  "  when  I  recall  my  feelings 
at  the  reception  of  this  communication, 
and  I  wonder  that  I  had  not  gone  mad." 
When  the  Judge-Advocate,  making  a 
friendly,  "unofficial"  call,  asked,  "To 
what  terms  would  you  be  willing  to  sub- 
scribe for  your  release  ?"  she  replied,  with 
unbroken  courage: 

"  None,  sir !  I  demand  my  uncondi- 
tional release,  indemnity  for  losses,  and 
the  restoration  of  my  papers  and  effects." 

The  day  after  Christmas  Mrs.  Green- 
how wrote  two  letters.  The  one,  in 
cipher,  was  found  in  the  archives  of 
the  Confederate  War  Department  when 
Eichmond  was  evacuated ;  it  was  deciph- 
ered and  published  in  the  Official  Eecords : 


572 


HARPER'S    MONTHLY   MAGAZINE 


December  20th 
In  a  day  or  two  1,200  cavalry  supported 
by  four  batteries  of  artillery  will  cross  the 
river  above  to  get  behind  Manassas  and  cut 
off  railroad  and  o_ther  communications  with 
our  army  whilst  an  attack  is  made  in  front. 
For  God's  sake  heed  this.    It  is  positive.  .  .  . 

The  grape-vine  telegraph  lines  were  still 
clear  both  into  and  out  of  "  Port  Green- 
how." 

The  other  was  a  second  letter  to  Secre- 
tary Seward — a  very  different  sort  of 
letter  from  the  first,  being  but  a  tirade 
on  the  ethics  of  the  Southern  cause,  pur- 
poseless, save  that  "  Contempt  and  de- 
fiance alone  actuated  me.  I  had  known 
Seward  intimately,  and  he  had  frequently 
enjoyed  the  hospitalities  of  my  table." 
Unlike  its  worthy  predecessor,  this  letter 
was  to  bear  fruit. 

On  the  morning  of  the  5th  of  January 
a  search  was  again  commenced  through- 
out the  house.  The  police  were  search- 
ing for  the  copy  of  the  second  letter. 
But,  as  in  the  first  instance,  the  copy 
had  gone  out  simultaneously  with  the 
original.  When  Mrs.  Greenhow  was  al- 
lowed to  return  to  her  room  she  found 
that  the  window  had  been  nailed  up, 
and  every  scrap  of  paper  had  been  taken 
from  her  writing-desk  and  table. 

It  was  this  copy  of  the  second  letter 
to  Secretary  Seward  which  sent  Mrs. 
Greenhow  to  the  Old  Capitol  Prison. 

It  was  published  as  the  first  had  been, 
thereby  clearly  showing  that  Mrs.  Green- 
how was  still  able  to  communicate  with 
the  South  almost  at  will  in  spite  of  all 
efforts  to  prevent  her.  It  was  the  last 
straw.  The  State  Department  acted 
swiftly.  On  January  18th  came  the 
order  for  Mrs.  Greenhow  to  prepare  for 
immediate  removal  elsewhere ;  two  hours 
later  she  parted  from  her  faithful  and 
weeping  maid,  and  she  and  the  little 
Rose  left  their  home  forever.  Between 
the  doorstep  and  the  carriage  was  a 
double  file  of  soldiers,  between  whom  she 
passed;  at  the  carrinso —  still  holding 
little  Rose  by  the  hand — she  turned  on 
the  soldiers  indignantly.  "May  your 
next  duty  he  a  more  honorable  one  than 
that  of  guarding  helpless  women  and 
children,"  she  said. 

Dusk  had  fallen  ere  the  carriage 
nai-bcd  the  Old  Capitol;  here,  too,  a 
guard  was  drawn  up  under  arms  to  pre- 


vent any  attempt  at  rescue.  The  receiv- 
ing -  room  of  the  prison  was  crowded 
with  officers  and  civilians,  all  peering 
curiously.  Half  an  hour  later  she  and 
the  child  were  marched  into  a  room  very 
different  from  that  which  they  had  left 
in  the  house  in  Sixteenth  Street.  The 
room,  10.x  12,  was  on  the  second  floor 
of  the  back  building  of  the  prison ;  its 
only  window  (over  which  special  bars 
were  placed  next  day)  looked  out  upon 
the  prison-yard.  A  narrow  bed,  on  which 
was  a  straw  mattress  covered  by  a  pair 
of  unwashed  cotton  sheets,  a  small  feather 
pillow,  dingy  and  dirty,  a  few  wooden 
chairs,  a  table,  and  a  cracked  mirror, 
furnished  the  room  which  from  that 
night  was  to  be  theirs  during  months  of 
heart-breaking  imprisonment. 

An  understanding  of  those  bitter  days 
can  be  given  best  by  extracts  from  her 
diary: 

"  January  25ih. — I  have  been  one  week 
in  my  new  prison.  My  letters  now  all  go 
through  the  detective  police,  who  sub- 
ject them  to  a  chemical  process  to  extract 
the  treason.  In  one  of  the  newspaper 
accounts  I  am  supposed  to  use  sympa- 
thetic ink.  I  purposely  left  a  preparation 
very  conspicuously  placed,  in  order  to 
divert  attention  from, my  real  means  of 
communication,  and  they  have  swallowed 
the  bait  and  fancy  my  friends  are  at 
their  mercy.  January  28th. — This  day  as 
I  stood  at  my  barred  window  the  guard 
rudely  called  '  Go  'way  from  that  win- 
dow!' and  leveled  his  musket  at  me. 
I  maintained  my  position  without  eon- 
descending  to  notice  him,  whereupon  he 
called  the  corporal  of  the  guard.  I  called 
also  for  the  officer  of  the  guard,  .  .  . 
who  informed  me  that  I  must  not  go 
to  the  window.  I  quietly  told  him  that, 
at  whatever  peril,  I  should  avail  myself 
of  the  largest  liberty  of  the  four  wall* 
of  my  prison.  He  told  me  that  his  guard 
would  have  orders  to  fire  upon  me.  I 
had  no  idea  that  such  monstrous  regula- 
tions existed.  To-day  the  dinner  for  my- 
self and  child  consists  of  a  bowl  of  beans 
swimming  in  grease,  two  slices  of  fat 
junk,  and  two  slices  of  bread.  ...  I  was 
very  often  intruded  upon  by  large  parties 
of  Yankees,  who  came  with  passes  from 
the  Provost  -  Marshal  to  stare  at  me. 
Sometimes  I  was  amused,  and  generally 
contrived  to  find  out  what  was  going  on. 


MRS.    GREENHOW 


573 


.  .  .  Afterward  I  requested  the  super- 
intendent not  to  allow  a,ny  more  of  these 
parties  to  have  access  to  me.  He  told 
me  that  numbers  daily  came  to  the  prison 
who  would  gladly  give  him  ten  dollars 
apiece  to  be  allowed  to  pass  my  open 
door.  March  Sd. — Since  two  days  we  are 
actually  allowed  a  half -hour's  exercise  in 
the  prison-yard,  where  we  walk  up  and 
down,  picking  our  way  as  best  we  can 
through  mud  and  negroes,  followed  by 
soldiers  and  corporals,  bayonets  in  hand. 
.  .  .  Last  night  I  put  my  candle  on  the 
window,  in  order  to  get  something  out 
of  my  trunk  near  which  it  stood,  all 
unconscious  of  committing  any  offense 
against  prison  discipline,  when  the  guard 
below  called,  '  Put  out  that  light !'  I  gave 
no  heed,  but  only  lighted  another,  where- 
upon several  voices  took  up  the  cry,  add- 
ing, '  Damn  you,  I  will  fire  into  your 
room !'  Rose  was  in  a  state  of  great 
delight,  and  collected  all  the  ends  of 
candles  to  add  to  the  illumination.  By 
this  the  clank  of  arms  and  patter  of  feet, 
in  conjunction  with  the  furious  rapping 
at  my  door,  with  a  demand  to  open  it, 
announced  the  advent  of  corporal  and 
sergeant.  My  door  was  now  secured  in- 
side by  a  bolt  which  had  been  allowed 
me.  I  asked  their  business.  Answer, 
'  You  are  making  signals,  and  must  re- 
move your  lights  from  the  window.'  I 
said,  '  But  it  suits  my  convenience  to 
keep  them  there.'  '  We  will  break  open 
your  door  if  you  don't  open  it.'  '  Ton 
will  act  as  you  see  fit,  but  it  will  be  at 
your  peril!'  They  did  not  dare  to  carry 
out  this  threat,  as  they  knew  that  I  had 
a  very  admirable  pistol  on  my  mantel- 
piece, restored  to  me  a  short  time  since, 
although  they  did  not  know  that  I  had 
no  ammunition  for  it."  The  candles 
burned  themselves  out,  and  that  ended 
it,  save  that  next  day,  by  order  of  the 
Provost-Marshal,  the  pistol  was  taken 
from  the  prisoner. 

But  it  was  not  all  a  merry  baiting  of 
the  guards  —  there  was  hardship  con- 
nected with  this  imprisonment.  In  spite 
of  the  folded  clothing  placed  on  the  hard 
bed,  the  child  used  to  cry  out  in  the 
night,  "  Oh,  mamma,  mamma,  the  bed 
hurts  me  so!"  The  rooms  above  were 
filled  with  negroes.  "  The  tramping  and 
screaming  of  negro  children  overhead  was 
most  dreadful."    Worse  than  mere  sound 


came  from  these  other  prisoners:  there 
came  disease.  Smallpox  broke  out  among 
them,  also  the  lesser  disease,  camp 
measles,  which  latter  was  contracted  by 
the  little  Rose.  She,  too,  had  her  mem- 
ories of  the  Old  Capitol;  in  a  recent 
letter  she  wrote : 

"  I  do  not  remember  very  much  about 
our  imprisonment  except  that  I  used  to 
cry  myself  to  sleep  from  hunger.  .  .  . 
There  was  a  tiny  closet  in  our  room  in 
which  mother  contrived  to  loosen  a  plank 
that  she  would  lift  up,  and  the  prisoners 
of  war  underneath  would  catch  hold  of 
my  legs  and  lower  me  into  their  room; 
they  were  allowed  to  receive  fruit,  etc., 
from  the  outside,  and  generously  shared 
with  me,  also  they  would  give  mother 
news  of  the  outside  world."  Thus  the 
days  passed  until  Mrs.  Greenhow  was 
summoned  to  appear,  March  25th,  before 
the  United  States  Commissioners  for  the 
Trial  of  State  Prisoners. 

Of  this  "  trial  "  the  only  record  avail- 
able is  her  own  —  rather  too  flippant 
in  tone  to  be  wholly  convincing  as 
to  its  entire  sincerity.  Her  account 
begins  soberly  enough :  the  cold,  raw 
day,  the  slowly  falling  snow,  the  mud 
through  which  the  carriage  labored  to 
the  office  of  the  Provost  -  Marshal  in 
what  had  been  the  residence  of  Senator 
Guin — "  one  of  the  most  elegant  in  the 
city;  .  .  .  my  mind  instinctively  reverted 
to  the  gay  and  brilliant  scenes  in  which 
I  had  mingled  in  that  house,  and  the 
goodly  company  who  had  enjoyed  its 
hospitality."  There  was  a  long  wait  in 
a  fireless  anteroom;  then  she  was  led  be- 
fore the  Commissioners  for  her.  trial. 
"  My  name  was  announced,  and  the  Com- 
missioners advanced  to  receive  me  with 
ill-concealed  embarrassment.  I  bowed  to 
themi,  saying :  '  Gentlemen,  resume  your 
seats.  I  recognize  the  embarrassment  of 
your  positions;  it  was  a  mistake  on  the 
part  of  your  government  to  have  selected 
gentlemen  for  this  mission.  Tou  have, 
however,  shown  me  but  scant  courtesy  in 
having  kept  me  waiting  your  pleasure 
for  nearly  an  hour  in  the  cold.' "  The 
prisoner  took  her  place  at  the  long  table, 
midway  between  the  two  Commissioners, 
one  of  whom,  General  Dix,  was  a  former 
friend;  at  smaller  tables  were  several 
secretaries;  if  there  were  any  spectators 
other  than  the  newspaper  reporters,  she 


574 


HARPER'S    MONTHLY   MAGAZINE 


makes  no  mention  of  them.  The  trial 
began. 

"  One  of  the  reporters  now  said,  '  If 
you  please,  speak  a  little  louder,  mad- 
am.' I  rose  from  my  seat,  and  said  to 
General  Dix,  '  If  it  is  your  object  to 
make  a  spectacle  of  me,  and  furnish  re- 
ports for  the  newspapers,  I  shall  have 
the  honor  to  withdraw  from  this  pres- 
ence.' Hereupon  both  Commissioners 
arose  and  protested  that  they  had  no 
such  intention,  but  that  it  was  necessary 
to  take  notes.  .  .  ."  The  examination 
then  continued  "  in  a  strain  in  no  respect 
different  from  that  of  an  ordinary  con- 
versation held  in  a  drawing-room,  and 
to  which  I  replied  sarcastically,  .  .  .  and 
a  careless  listener  would  have  imagined 
that  the  Commission  was  endeavoring 
with  plausible  arguments  to  defend  the 
government  rather  than  to  incriminate 
me.  .  .  ."  The  other  Commissioner  then 
said,  " '  General  Dix,  you  are  so  much 
better  acquainted  with  Mrs.  Greenhow, 
suppose  you  continue  the  examination?' 
I  laughingly  said,  '  Commence  it,  for  I 
hold  that  it  has  not  begun.' "  Mrs. 
Greenhow's  account  makes  no  mention 
of  any  witnesses  either  for  or  against 
her;  the  evidence  seems  to  have  consisted 
solely  in  the  papers  found  in  her  house. 
The  whole  examination — as  she  records 
it — may  be  summed  up  in  the  following 
questions  and  answers: 

"  '  Tou  are  charged  with  treason.'  '  I 
deny  it !'  '  You  are  charged,  madam,  with 
having  caused  a  letter  which  you  wrote 
to  the  Secretary  of  State  to  be  published 
in  Richmond.'  '  That  can  hardly  be 
brought  forward  as  one  of  the  causes  of 
my  arrest,  for  I  had  been  some  three 
months  a  prisoner  when  that  letter  was 
written.'  '  You  are  charged,  madam, 
with  holding  communication  with  the 
enemy  in  the  South.'  '  If  this  were  an 
established  fact,  you  could  not  be  sur- 
prised at  it;  I  am  a  Southern  woman.' 
.  .  .  '  How  is  it,  madam,  that  you  have 
managed  to  communicate,  in  spite  of  the 
vigilance  exercised  over  you?'  'That  is 
my  secret!'"  And  that  was  practically 
the  end,  save  that  the  prisoner  said  she 
would  refuse  to  take  the  oath  of  al- 
legiance if  this  opportunity  to  be  freed 
were  offered  her. 

April  3d  the  superintendent  of  the 
Old   Capitol  read   to  her  a   copy  of  the 


decree  of  the  Commission:  she  had  been 
sentenced  to  be .  exiled.  But  the  days 
passed  and  nothing  came  of  it.  Tanta- 
lized beyond  endurance,  she  wrote  that 
she  was  "  ready  "  to  go  South.  General 
McClellan,  she  was  then  told,  had  object- 
ed to  her  being  sent  South  at  this  time. 
(Federal  spies — secret-service  men,  who, 
under  Allan  Pinkerton,  had  arrested  Mrs. 
Greenhow — were  on  trial  for  their  lives 
in  Richmond;  it  was  feared  that,  were 
she  sent  South,  her  testimony  would  be 
used  against  them.)  "  Day  glides  into 
day  with  nothing  to  mark  the  flight  of 
time,"  the  diary  continues.  "  The  heat 
is  intense,  with  the  sun  beating  down  upon 
the  house-top  and  in  the  windows.  .  .  . 
My  child  is  looking  pale  and  ill.  .  .  . 
Saturday,  May  81st. — At  two  o'clock  to- 
day [Prison  Superintendent]  Wood  came 
in  with  the  announcement  that  I  was  to 
start  at  three  o'clock  for  Baltimore." 
The  end  of  imprisonment  had  come  as 
suddenly  as  its  beginning. 

Disquieting  rumors  had  been  reaching 
Mrs.  Greenhow  for  some  time  in  regard 
to  removal  to  Fort  Warren.  Was  this, 
after  all,  a  mere  Yankee  trick  to  get  her 
there  quietly?  She  was  about  to  enter 
the  carriage  that  was  to  bear  her  from  the 
Old  Capitol,  when,  unable  longer  to  bear 
the  suspense,  she  turned  suddenly  to  the 
young  lieutenant  of  the  escort:  "  Sir, 
ere  I  advance  further,  I  ask  you,  not 
as  Lincoln's  officer,  but  as  a  man  of  honor 
and  a  gentleman,  are  your  orders  from 
Baltimore  to  conduct  me  to  a  Northern 
prison,  or  to  some  point  in  the  Con- 
federacy ?"  "  On  my  honor,  madam,"  he 
answered,  "to  conduct  you  to  Fortress 
Monroe  and  tbence  to  the  Southern  Con- 
federacy." Her  imprisonment  had.  in- 
deed, ended.  There  was  yet  the  Abolition- 
soldier  guard — on  the  way  to  the  station, 
on  the  cars,  in  Baltimore,  on  the  steamer; 
there  was  yet  to  he  signed  at  Fortress 
Monroe  the  parole  in  which,  in  considera- 
1ion  of  being  set  at  liberty,  she  pledged 
her  honor  not  to  return  north  of  the 
Potomac  during  the  war;  but  from  that 
moment  at  the  carriage-door  she  felt  her- 
self no  longer  a  prisoner. 

To  the  query  of  the  Provost-Marshal 
at  Fortress  Monroe  she  replied  that  she 
wished  to  be  sent  "  to  the  capital  of  the 
Confederacy,  wherever  that  might  be." 
That  was  still  Richmond,  he  told  her,  but 


Drawn  by  Stanley  M.  Arthurs  Half-tone  plate  engraved  by  C.  E.  Hart 

MRS.    GREENHOW    AND    THE    TWO    OTHER    PASSENGERS    DEMANDED    TO    BE    SET    ASHORE 


MRS.    GEEENHOW 


575 


it  would  be  in  Federal  hands  before  she 
could  reach  there.  She  would  take 
chances  on  that,  was  her  laughing  re- 
joinder. And  so  she  was  set  ashore  at  City 
Point  by  a  boat  from  the  Monitor,  and 
next  morning,  June  4th.,  she  and  little 
Eose,  escorted  by  Confederate  officers,  ar- 
rived in  Eichmond.  And  there,  "  on  the 
evening  of  my  arrival,  our  President  did 
me  the  honor  to  call  on  me,  and  his  words 
of  greeting,  '  But  for  you  there  would 
have  been  no  battle  of  Bull  Bun,'  repaid 
me  for  all  I  had  endured." 

Could  the  story  be  told  of  the  succeed- 
ing twenty-seven  months  of  Mrs.  Green- 
how's  life,  much  of  the  secret  history  of 
the  Confederacy  might  be  revealed.  It  is 
improbable  that  the  story  ever  will  be 
told.  Months  of  effort  to  learn  details 
have  resulted  in  but  vague  glimpses  of 
her,  as  one  sees  an  ever-receding  figure 
at  the  turns  of  a  winding  road.  Her 
daughter  Eose  has  written :  "  Whether 
mother  did  anything  for  the  Con- 
federacy in  Eichmond  is  more  than  I 
can  tell.  I  know  that  we  went  to 
Charleston,  South  Carolina,  and  that  she 
saw  General  Beauregard  there."  Then 
came  weeks  of  waiting  for  the  sailing  of 
a  blockade  -  runner  from  Wilmington, 
North  Carolina;  quiet,  happy  weeks  they 
were,  perhaps  the  happiest  she  had  known 
since  the  war  began.  She  was  taking 
little  Eose  to  Paris,  to  place  her  in  the 
Convent  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  she  told 
her  new-made  friends.  One  morning 
1hey  found  that  she  and  little  Eose  had 
gone.  A  blockade-runner  had  slipped  out 
during  the  night  and  was  on  its  way  with 
them  to  Bermuda. 

Many  have  definitely  asserted  that  Mrs. 
Greenhow  went  to  England  and  France 
on  a  secret  mission  for  the  Confederacy. 
No  proof  of  this  has  ever  been  found, 
but  the  little  which  has  been  learned  of 
her  sojourn  in  Europe  strongly  supports 
the  theory  of  such  a  mission  there.  The 
ship  which  bore  them  to  England  from 
Bermuda  was  an  English  man-of-war,  in 
which  they  sailed  "  at  President  Davis's 
especial  request."  Then  there  were 
President  Davis's  personal  letters  to 
Messrs.  Mason  and  Slidell,  requesting 
them  that  they  show  to  Mrs.  Greenhow 
every  attention.  In  Prance  she  was  given 
a  private  audience  with  Napoleon  III. ; 
in  London,  presented  to  England's  Queen. 


A  letter  written  to  her  by  James  Spence, 
financial  agent  of  the  Confederates  in 
Liverpool,  shows  her  to  have  been  active- 
ly engaged  in  support  of  the  interests  of 
the  South  from  her  arrival  in  England. 
But  of  any  secret  mission  there  is  not  a 
trace — unless  her  book,  My  Imprison- 
ment, or  the  First  Year  of  Abolition 
Rule  in  Washington,  may  thus  be  con- 
sidered. The  book  was  brought  out  in 
November,  1863,  by  the  well-known  Eng- 
lish publishing-house  of  Eiehard  Bent- 
ley  &  Son;  immediately  it  made  a  pro- 
found sensation  in  London — particularly 
in  the  highest  society  circles,  into  which 
Mrs.  Greenhow  had  at  once  been  re- 
ceived. My  Imprisonment  was  a  brilliant 
veneer  of  personal  war-time  experiences 
laid  alluringly  over  a  solid  backing  of 
Confederate  States'  propaganda.  Eich- 
mond may  or  may  not  have  fathered  it, 
but  that  book  in  England  served  the 
South  well.  *  None  who  knew  Mrs. 
Greenhow  ever  forgot  her  charm;  she 
made  friends  everywhere — such  friends  as 
Thomas  Carlyle  and  Lady  Pranklin,  and 
a  score  more  whose  names  are  nearly  as 
well  known  to-day.  She  was  betrothed 
to  a  prominent  peer. 

All  in  all,  this  is  but  scant  information 
to  cover  a  period  of  more  than  two  years. 
Only  one  other  fact  has  been  obtained 
regarding  her  life  abroad,  but  it  is  most 
significant  in  support  of  the  belief  that 
she  was  a  secret  agent  for  the  Con- 
federacy. In  August,  1864,  Mrs.  Green- 
how left  England  suddenly  and  sailed 
for  Wilmington  on  the  ship  Condor. 
Though  her  plans  were  to  return  al- 
most at  once,  marry,  and  remain  in 
England,  the  fact  that  she  left  in  Lon- 
don her  affianced  husband,  and  her  lit- 
tle Eose  in  the  Convent  of  the  Sacred 
Heart  in  Paris,  while  she  herself  risked 
her  life  to  run  the  blockade,  seems 
strong  evidence  that  her  business  in  the 
Confederate  States  of  America  was  im- 
portant business,  indeed.  The  Condor 
was  a  three  -  funneled  steamer,  newly 
built,  and  on  her  first  trip  as  a  blockade- 
runner — a  trade  for  which  she  was  su- 
perbly adapted,  being  swift  as  a  sea- 
swallow.  She  was  commanded  by  a 
veteran  captain  of  the  Crimean  War — an 

*  Many  of  the  passages  in  this  article  have 
been  quoted  from  Mrs.  Greenhow's  own 
narrative. 


576 


HAEPEE'S    MONTHLY    MAGAZINE 


English  officer  on  a  year's  leave,  blockade- 
running  for  adventure  —  Captain  Au- 
gustus Charles  Hobart-Hampden,  various- 
ly known  to  the  blockade-running  fleet 
as  Captain  Eoberts,  Hewett,  or  Gulick. 

On  the  night  of  September  30th  the 
Condor  arrived  opposite  the  mouth  of 
the  Cape  Fear  Eiver,  the  entry  for  Wil- 
mington, and  in  the  darkness  stole  swift- 
ly through  the  blockade.  She  was  almost 
in  the  mouth  of  the  river,  and  not  two 
hundred  yards  from  shore,  when  suddenly 
there  loomed  up  in  the  darkness  a  vessel 
dead  ahead.  To  the  frightened  pilot  of 
the  Condor  it  was  one  of  the  Federal 
squadron;  he  swerved  his  ship  sharply, 
and  she  drove  hard  on  New  Inlet  bar. 
In  reality  the  ship  which  had  caused  the 
damage  was  the  wreck  of  the  blockade- 
runner  Nigltthawk,  which  had  been  run 
down  the  previous  night.  The  Condor's 
pilot  sprang  overboard  and  swam  ashore. 
Dawn  was  near  breaking,  and  in  the 
now  growing  light  the  Federal  blockaders 
which  had  followed  the  Condor  were  seen 
to  be  closing  in.  Though  the  Condor, 
lying  almost  under  the  very  guns  of  Fort 
Fisher — which  had  begun  firing  at  the 
Federal  ships  and  was  holding  them  off — 


was  for  the  time  being  safe,  yet  Mrs. 
Greenhow  and  the  two  other  passengers, 
Judge  Holcombe  and  Lieutenant  Wilson, 
Confederate  agents,  demanded  that  they 
be  set  ashore.  There  was  little  wind  and 
there  had  been  no  storm,  but  the  tide- 
rip  ran  high  over  the  bar,  and  the  boat 
was  lowered  into  heavy  surf.  Scarcely 
was  it  clear  of  the  tackles  ere  a  great 
wave  caught  it,  and  in  an  instant  it  was 
overturned.  Mrs.  Greenhow,  weighted 
down  by  her  heavy  black  silk  dress  and 
a  bag  full  of  gold  sovereigns,  which  she 
had  fastened  round  her  waist,  sank  at 
once  and  did  not  rise  again.  The  others 
succeeded  in  getting  ashore. 

The  body  of  Mrs.  Greenhow  was  washed 
up  on  the  beach  next  day.  They  buried 
her  in  Wilmington — buried  her  with  the 
honors  of  war,  and  a  Confederate  flag 
wrapped  about  her  coffin.  And  every 
Memorial  Day  since  then  there  is  laid 
upon  her  grave  a  wreath  of  laurel  leaves 
such  as  is  placed  only  upon  the  graves  of 
soldiers.  Long  ago  the  Ladies'  Memo- 
rial Society  placed  there  a  simple  marble 
cross,  on  which  is  carved :  "  Mrs.  Eose 
O'Neal  Greenhow.  A  Bearer  of  De- 
spatches to  the  Confederate  Government." 


When    I    am    Gone 


BY    RICHARD    LE    GALLIENNE 


WHEN  I  am  gone. 
Over  the  silent  sky 
The  birds  will  fly; 
Ah!  how  the  birds  will  sing — 
When  I  am  gone; 
And  the  blue  eye 

Of  some  unborn   and  beautiful  young  thing 
Will  watch  them  fly, 

And  her  young  heart  will  break  to  hear  them  sing- 
When  I  am  gone. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


00032742774 


FOR  USE  ONLY  IN 
THE  NORTH  CAROLINA  COLLECTION 


